Becoming A Butterfly (The Butterfly Chronicles) (15 page)

We need to talk.
His response was,

Lunch?

Perfect.

I hadn’t quite figured out what I would say, but I knew I had to convince him to remain my friend. I fidgeted all morning while I waited and watched the clock. It couldn’t come soon enough. He met me at my locker and suddenly it felt like it was happening too fast.

“
We shouldn’t do this,” he said, shifting on his feet.

“
We kind of have to,” I replied as I put my books up.

“
Fine, let’s go out to the football field then.” I nodded. I didn’t want an audience or witnesses any more than he did. We walked side by side in silence, our shoulders slumped, hands in pockets. Finally, when we reached the bleachers, we sat down on the first seat and turned toward each other. We both looked down, me at my hands in my lap, him at a wad of chewing gum that had been ground into the grass.

“
I’m sorry,” he began.

“
No, you don’t get to take the blame for this. I’m sorry. It was my fault. Can we just forget it happened? Because really, nothing happened,” I stammered. He looked up at me confused.

“
I’m not stupid; we almost kissed. I wanted to kiss you.” My heart felt like it did what cartoon characters did when they fell in love, beat out of my chest in a large heart shape stretching my shirt with it.

“
But we didn’t; we’re becoming friends, and I like that. I’m not ready for that to end.” I looked out across the field to the backyards of several houses. Some of them were brick, some had siding, some had patios, some had decks, some I couldn’t see because they had privacy fences. Every house was different; every house had sat there for years. I’d come to countless games during football seasons. This was the first time I’d ever really looked at those houses.

“
I have to tell Farrah,” he exhaled, almost admitting the defeat of our friendship. Maybe he felt the same way. “If I lose her, I’m not sure if I could forgive myself.” My heart found the normal rhythm again.

“
Let me; it was my fault. I want to fix this,” I said hurriedly.

“
No way; it’s my relationship on the line.”

“
You don’t trust me?” Maybe I should have said you shouldn’t trust me. But that only made sense to
me
; he didn’t know he shouldn’t trust me—yet. “All the more reason it should come from me first. I’ve known her longer.” He thought about it and made me nervous the way he was debating silently with furrowed eyebrows
,
and his lips pursed in concentration.

“
Fine. Ask her to call me when you’re done. That way I know I can talk to her about it. I’ll let you tell her first, but I’m still going to talk to her about it if she’ll listen to me.”

“
OK,” I said.

In hindsight, he had just given me an out. As Farrah, I could have thrown a fit and broken up with him, no harm no foul. He actually expected it. He was preparing himself for it. But unlike Chase, I was too close to the situation and couldn’t see through my blinders past my nose, so I stuck with my plan. Maybe a small part of me wanted him to see me take off the wig and say something to me like, “It doesn’t matter what you look like or who you are, I’ve fallen in love with you, and you’re what matters. I want to be with only you.” I hoped. Hope is a beautiful creature. You hang on when there is hope, grasping for any proof that you can interpret for your benefit. Hope allows you to strive for more. Hope enables dreams to come true because you’re always watching and looking for your hope to be revealed as something tangible. I hoped.

We walked back to school, all talked out, the silence making my skin crawl. He gave me a nod and left me standing just inside the doors. I took a deep breath and found myself wandering to my locker. My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I took it out, and under the Google app, Henry had sent me, as Farrah, a text.

I need to talk to you as soon as possible. Don’t talk to anyone, especially Lacey, before you talk to me.

Frowning, I stuffed it back into my pocket. Who did he think he was? He lied to me, specifically told me he’d wait for me. But he didn’t. He lied. I know I said that but it bore repeating. This was major. I put it in the back of my mind. I didn’t respond to him. I wanted to slam my head into my locker. I couldn’t quite mark Henry off
the checklist, and I was absolutely ready to.

After school I worked for my parents, and I turned my phone off after ignoring two phone calls from Henry, and by the time I made it home, I was exhausted mentally and physically. I didn’t feel like company, but I had two more names to cross off the checklist of friends I’d wronged. Tasha technically wasn’t on the list, but she would remain loyal to Jade if it came down to it. I didn’t like that, but I knew it was true. I took a long bubble bath while the house was empty. Lana was spending the night with Nana. She’d been doing that a lot lately. I wondered if there was comfort she received there that she wasn’t getting from us at home. While I had a moment of peace, I took advantage of it, slipping down until I felt the surface of the water ring a circle around my cheeks, touching the edges of my eyes and just below my lips. I floated as the water rippled around me. I felt weightless even though the world seemed to be crushing in on me. My radio played in the background. Under the water it had a deeper sound, rumbling desperately to fill my ears. I wanted to stay here forever, floating in limbo between reality and escape. Finally, my fingers resembled raisins and my skin felt water logged. I drained the water, wrapped myself in a towel, and went into my room. I had begun to appreciate the closed blinds. I used to dress only in my bathroom, and now I regularly walked around my room in my skivvies. The closed blinds might just stay for good. I got dressed and went downstairs to wait for my friends. I texted Jade and asked her to get drive-thru since my parents weren’t home yet, either of them. I thought that was strange but didn’t worry about it. The girls arrived a while later with Steak ’n’ Shake. We settled in the great room and ate our food in silence except for occasional gossip from Tasha.

“
Did Lana tell you when cheer camp was?” Tasha asked, as she slurped on her strawberry smoothie.

“
The end of June? I heard my mom talking about it. I guess they wanted to go to Cancun for their anniversary, but now they don’t want to leave me here alone. I don’t know what the big deal is though. I could totally hang out for a week all by myself,” I said as I rolled my eyes and scraped my fry through the cheese sauce before I rushed it to my mouth.

“
You could stay with me and Mom if they didn’t want you to stay alone. That’s not fair to them. Isn’t it like their fifteenth anniversary?” Jade asked.

“
Um, I’m sixteen, so, no, it’s their eighteenth,” I laughed. “They haven’t taken a vaca alone since their tenth, I think. I’ll talk to my mom and suggest it. They definitely deserve it.” I paused and looked at the ceiling for a moment before continuing. “Speaking of things deserved, you deserve an apology, Jade.” She practically choked on her slushie, and Tasha giggled. “I’m not going to go for Henry as myself until Farrah is out of the picture. But,” I said, holding up my finger to make sure she knew I wasn’t done. “I’m not going to do anything until Stacey’s party. Please trust me.”

Pleased, she nodded. “I do.”

“
So I was thinking about tomorrow,” I continued. “We need to figure out a way to send whatever is going on with you and Chase to the next level.”

“
What’s going on with Chase and me?” she asked, confused but curious. My face began to get hot.

“
You guys were flirting the other day. Tasha back me up.” She didn’t; she only stared at me, equally confused.

“
When did we flirt?” Her eyes darted to the right as she genuinely tried to remember.

“
At lunch, when you were giving me a hard time about leading Henry on,” I said, trying to jog her memory.

“
He wasn’t flirting with
me
.” She scowled at me.

“
He was.”

“
No, he was just being nice to me; that’s not flirting. We seriously need to get you a boyfriend.” Now my face was full on red.

“
He doesn’t do that with me, so I assumed he was flirting—you were flirting too; do you like him?” I asked, the confused one now.

“
He doesn’t do that with you because he enjoys your reactions; anyone can tell. And I definitely don’t like him like that. He’s blackmailing me, too. I’m not sure if I like him like anything. Which, I don’t understand why all of a sudden you’re worried about his happiness.” Jade stared at me hard

“
He’s different. I don’t know. I understand him I guess is all.” I picked up the empty wrappers and took them to the kitchen to throw them away. “Tomorrow we’re done with that. He told me he’d keep his mouth shut.” Jade and Tasha adjusted on the couch so they could still see me, my attempt at diversion completely faltered
.
I returned and filled them in on my conversations, feeling that we were rebuilding the threads that had begun to unravel over the past few weeks.

Chapter 19

Saturday morning, Tasha’s dad picked her up early, and Jade and I packed for the day. We packed a carry-on size suitcase of all the necessities I would need and made sure we had all of her extra lenses and batteries. I was in a comfy sweat suit and wore my glasses with my hair pulled up in a messy bun on the top of my head; of course, my hair was already trying to escape. Chase pulled up, and Jade and I carried our things from the front porch. He got out and unlocked the trunk immediately to begin to making room. Then he stood at the back of his car with me, neither of us saying anything. His eyes held mine in a truth serum gaze.

“
Are we ready?” Jade asked, snapping him out of his trance.

“
Yeah,” he said as he took the bags from me. I climbed into the back seat—not giving that option to Jade. They got into the front, and we were on our way. Jade and Chase bantered about the radio station. I think they were still flirting, but I had a feeling Jade would deny it. I stared out the window, watching the scenery. I suddenly felt tired. I leaned my head against the cool glass. This was the final task I owed him, and a small part of me feared that he would abandon me. That terrified me. I looked forward, and our eyes met in the rearview mirror. The emotions flashed so fast I almost missed them. He felt the same way about me.

“
So where are we going to meet the band?”

“
Evan’s house, Lacey can change there.” I was nervous. I never did well in crowds, especially crowds of hip scene kids who ate nerds for breakfast. I took deep breaths and closed my eyes.

We arrived two hours later. I trailed Chase and Jade, dragging my suitcase behind me. A boy with a shaved Mohawk that stood six inches off his head answered the door.

“
E, my man!” Chase cried as he grabbed his hand and did a chest bump hug, back clap thing.

“
Who is this?” Evan asked. As he surveyed Jade, she gave him a flirty smile.
OH, that was how she flirted, completely, blatantly obviously. OK, I get it now.

“
This is Jade, our photographer. This,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me in front of him, “is Lacey, or Farrah, as we all know and love her.” He draped his arm around my shoulder, but my nerves didn’t subside. Evan led us into his house and showed me to the bathroom, but when we passed the living room, I saw three other guys lounging. One had blond, streaked hair with jagged bangs. He wore black skinny pants, and a black sleeveless shirt, and he had chains looping from his belt-loops. The other two looked like they could have been Chase’s brothers, same messy hair, same uniform—ripped jeans and T-shirts although theirs had colors and graphics on them. Chase put his hand on the small of my back and pointed with his other.

“
Alvin, Simon, and Theodore,” he said pointing to each one. They waved.

“
No way,” I said, turning to face him with eyes the sizes of saucers.

“
No,” he smiled. “AJ, Stain, and Thax.” I nodded, embarrassed for believing him. I went to the bathroom
and changed into a short, thin, cream dress with small navy flowers. I smiled, knowing Chase would be pleased that I picked the dress he’d chosen for me. I put in the contacts, did my makeup, and put the wig on. I’d transformed myself again. I tied a scarlet scarf around my wrist and put the dangly bracelets on the other. Finally, I put on a lavender, cap-sleeved shrug that wrapped around me and tied it into a bow, giving me an empire waistline. I slipped my feet into ballet slippers and exited the bathroom. The hum of conversation in the living room stilled as everyone turned to look at me.

“
Wow, she really looks like another person,” Evan said without thinking. Then he looked apologetic at Chase, who scowled.